Euan Semple has a wonderful blog called “The Obvious.” He writes (well, on Aug 22nd he published) this
Thought you might enjoy this paragraph from the chapter in my book exhorting people to resist tidying up their information:
Finding the good stuff is one of the functions of bloggers. Information rag and bone men who curate the weak signal and the long tail. Seeing patterns in the small, the marginal, the messy. This is where those with nerdy curiosity and a good eye can find real value in what others have discarded or not noticed. Boosting these weak signals so that they last long enough to travel long distances takes effort and care. Finding it, recording it and nurturing it are important skills. Separating it in a dynamic way from the noise. Curation is becoming one of the most valued skills on the internet. Pulling together the good stuff. Separating the signal from the noise and boosting it. We will all have to develop these skills. Recycling has become a way of life for many of us. Why not apply this to information and knowledge? Keep your knowledge equivalent of potato peelings and use them to generate compost. Pile more rubbish on the bits of the garden you want to grow and employ gardeners who tend and care for your baby shoots rather than disinfecting your information spaces.
Euan is so right here. Many seek to find an algorithm to find the “good stuff” but I prefer the human filter. You don’t need to big a circle to get a good one. 30 to the power of 4 is over a million sets of eyes and brains
So much crap out there!!!’s like, as the expression goes, trying to drink from a fire hydrant.
For me too, the way forward is to find people who have the same *general* world view/assumptions, (but without descending into group think and “the daily me” echo-chamber.)
But, I am also looking forward to almost 4 weeks of no internet!! Posts will keep coming, because I am queuing ‘em up, but from next Tuesday I won’t be around to reply to comments etc… Travelling!!